Even with a smaller team and new players, JV football is “stepping up” this season

The San Lorenzo Valley Junior Varsity football team has a good chance at having a successful season this year with a current record of two wins and zero losses. Starting quarterback RJ Kindred says “ Were not as good as last year, but we have put in much more work, hopefully it pays off”. The Junior Varsity team threw a whopping 275 yards in their first home game against Yerba Buena High School this last Saturday with a final score of 34-21, giving SLV a win. Chris Markey says “ It’s going to be a challenging season, but our coaches push us hard.” With limited number of players on the sideline the football team is limited on substitutions for players. As a player you have to want it more than the other team, you have to show up to practice, get as many reps in as possible and give 110% every single play.

As a coach looking at the limited numbers of players they have it means a lot of conditioning and field work. Anyone that has played a sport that requires a lot of running knows that conditioning is the worst, but as a player they know that in the end you will be able to last all four quarters of football and will be able to give 110% to each play for the whole game. For the Junior Varsity they have two bye weeks in a row and then they come back to play Fremont in their second home game. As for new players Aden Rich says “ Hitting people is by far the best part of football.” The Junior Varsity team is built up of mainly Freshmen requiring some of the players that have never played before to step up and pull their own weight. “My defense is pretty good, still waiting to have my chance on offense” Aden Rich says.

As a player the first hit sets the tone, make the first hit an impact to the other team and get them shook up it also helps with the attitude of your team. It gets everyone’s head into the game. Will the size of the team affect them? RJ Kindred said “ we’re much smaller” which means everyone’s head has to be in the game everyone has to step up show themselves. Most Junior Varsity teams are made up of mostly sophomores, so we definitely have a disadvantage when playing larger schools that have little freshman on there team. They have to be faster and more strategic on the field with their plays, since a lot of our players are smaller than the teams we play. The team learns and grows from every game, making them better at all positions. In a way SLV has an advantage over other teams because we have a smaller team and learn the strengths and weaknesses of each player. The plays can be broken down to play to everyone’s strengths and is not obvious in film when other teams are reviewing the plays. The team has some of the best equipment with a NFL caliber weight room, and a mediocre field. The team also has more safety gear than most schools they play, all which give a little more of a upper hand. But what it all truly comes down to is the dedication of the players, the coaching staff and the support staff. As the old saying goes “it takes a village” and in the case of the Junior Varsity team they wouldn’t be where they are now without that “village”. According to some players they feel Junior Varsity team will have a great season ahead, If the team sticks together and unites as one, nothing can stop them.